DOCSLIB.ORG

English (ENGL) 1

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
English (ENGL) 1 English (ENGL) 1 ENGL 1270 Reading Monsters ENGLISH (ENGL) 3 credit hours Students examine the monstrous in literary imaginations and the NOTE: A PASSING GRADE IN A 1000-LEVEL ENGLISH COURSE IS marginal spaces – cultural, religious, political, racial, gendered – NORMALLY REQUIRED FOR ENTRANCE INTO 2000-LEVEL ENGLISH monsters inhabit. Students read texts in a range of historical contexts COURSES. and genres in order to consider fundamental questions about the monstrous and the human, desire and horror, and image and text. ENGL 1100 Composition 3 credit hours ENGL 1280 Literature & the Arts Students develop the essential elements of university-level writing 3 credit hours valuable in almost every field. Engaging in a range of writing Students consider the relation between literature and other art forms with assignments, individual tutorials, and textual analysis (from a wide a view to developing active habits of reading, watching, and listening. variety of genres), students apply proper citation practices, to engage What does the translation of a poem or play into music or film teach us with the ideas of others, and to craft effective arguments. about how to practice creative interpretation in our own thinking and writing? ENGL 1205 Introduction to Literature 3 credit hours ENGL 1284 Literature and Resistance This course introduces students to works of literature in English 3 credit hours representing a variety of historical and cultural contexts. It develops the Students examine literatures from around the world that enact forms of student’s ability to interpret written texts and to write about them in an resistance. From political revolutions to protest movements, students informed and organized manner. explore the ways in which a range of texts (fiction, poetry, drama and film) creatively engage with issues of oppression, struggle and corruption. ENGL 1210 Literature and Travel 3 credit hours ENGL 1290 Literature and Violence Students encounter the many genres of travel writing in English, ranging 3 credit hours from early explorer’s journals to contemporary guidebooks and blogs. Students are introduced to works of literature from a variety of cultural Students examine the techniques used to turn the experiences of travel contexts and genres that engage with the dilemma of representing into literary form in relation to topics such as globalization, migration and violence. The texts in the course explore how ethics and aesthetics colonialism. interact to comment upon the capacity of literature to depict various forms of violence in often controversial ways. ENGL 1220 Literature and Science 3 credit hours ENGL 1300 Word, Image and Power Students study the relationship between literature and scientific thought 3 credit hours and discovery. Topics include works of various genres – fiction, drama, Students examine the power of words and images, and will improve their prose, poetry, and film – that interact with the scientific and technological own communicative and analytic ability in writing and speaking. Topics developments of their time, from the beginning of the scientific revolution include: memorable speeches delivered by leaders worldwide, examples to the present day. from contemporary visual culture and the advertising industry, and ideas communicated across various media platforms. ENGL 1230 Literature and the Environment 3 credit hours ENGL 2205 Practical Criticism Students explore the way the environment has been imagined in creative 3 credit hours works. Surveying representative texts ranging from nature writing Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level to ecocriticism, students consider how the literary representation of This course provides an introduction to the discipline of literary criticism the environment has, and continues to, evolve with changes in the through extensive exercises in the practical criticism of selected literary environment. works. It is aimed at developing essential skills in close reading and a ENGL 1250 Literature and Law critical vocabulary with which to analyze and discuss literature, while 3 credit hours sharpening students’ attentiveness to the way in which form and content Students study the relationship between legal and literary texts. Special contribute to meaning in a literary work. emphasis is placed on the literary invocation of legal phenomena, the ENGL 2261 Postcolonial Literature: Africa, the Caribbean, and South regulation of criminality, and the ways in which legal texts deploy literary Asia conventions to advance the cause of justice. 3 credit hours ENGL 1260 What Not to Wear: Reading Dress Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level 3 credit hours Students examine the various ways clothing rhetorically projects This course introduces students to postcolonial writing in English from symbolism and power. Reading from a range of historical periods and Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia. Authors to be studied may include genres, students focus on the ways texts use fashion to signal such Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Shyam Selvadurai, Samuel Selvon, fundamental issues as national identity, social distinction, religion, Jamaica Kincaid, Kamala Das and Anita Desai. politics, and gender and the body. 2 English (ENGL) ENGL 2262 Postcolonial Literature: Canada, Australia, and New ENGL 2310 Rethinking Rural Nova Scotia [ACST 2310,HIST 2310] Zealand 3 credit hours 3 credit hours Students assess the significance of Nova Scotia’s rural landscapes Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level by developing an understanding of their complex representations and histories. By using materials and approaches from both history and This course introduces students to postcolonial writing in English from literature, students explore the value of interdisciplinary research for Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Authors to be studied may include generating new thinking about how the past can inform the future. Eden Robinson, Sky Lee, Rudy Wiebe, Gerry Bostock, Jack Davis and Witi Ihimaera. ENGL 2311 Modern English Language [LING 2311] 3 credit hours ENGL 2301 Nineteenth Century Crime and Detective Fiction Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level 3 credit hours Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level The course will examine the nature of modern English semantics (meaning), syntax (‘wordings’), and morphology (word formation). Some This course considers the development of fiction of crime, mystery, attention is also paid to intonation (soundings). The course is presented and detection during the nineteenth century, a period in which this using contemporary grammatical theories. genre flourished. Authors to be studied include Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Henry James, E. ENGL 2312 Varieties of English A. Poe, and R. L. Stevenson. Attention may also be given to relevant 3 credit hours social developments, such as the rise of the police force, advances in Students investigate English regional and social dialects, and functional criminology and detection, the typology and psychology of the criminal, varieties adapted to different contexts and genres. Ideas about 'standard the “lady detective,” white-collar crime and criminal networks, and the English', attitudes to English varieties, attention to their historical origins, Victorian Underworld. and sources of stability and change in English will also be addressed. ENGL 2302 Twentieth Century Crime and Detective Fiction ENGL 2313 Narrative in Fiction and Film 3 credit hours 6 credit hours Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level A study of major 20th Century stories of crime, mystery, and detection. A study of a number of important works of fiction that have been Authors may include Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell successfully adapted to film. Students consider the specific properties Hammett, and Sue Grafton. that are unique to each medium and the implications (formal, thematic, social and political) involved in translating from page to screen. ENGL 2303 Fictions of Finance 3 credit hours ENGL 2314 Literary Legends: Don Juan Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level 3 credit hours Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level This course examines the representation of money and finance in a range of genres – including fiction, drama, poetry, and film – and from a range Students examine the mythical figure of Don Juan, the notorious seducer of literary periods. Authors to be considered include William Shakespeare, and trickster of Seville. Students track the complex evolution of this Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Theodore Dreiser, George Eliot, D. H. character through a rich medium of literary and cultural forms: drama, Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Arthur Miller, and Martin Amis. Topics to be poetry, fiction, and philosophy, music, and film. The centerpiece of the addressed include narratives of financial success and failure, gambling course is Mozart’s magnificent opera Don Giovanni. and risk, the expansion of capitalism and the stock market, lotteries and ENGL 2315 Masterpieces of Western Literature (Pre-Renaissance) auctions, fraud and financial crime, and hoarding and expenditure. 3 credit hours ENGL 2307 Literary Traditions in English Prerequisite: Three (3) credit hours in ENGL at the 1000-level 6 credit hours An historical survey of the major works of Western civilization
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-15962-4 — The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More Information The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature This fully revised second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature offers a comprehensive introduction to major writers, genres, and topics. For this edition several chapters have been completely re-written to relect major developments in Canadian literature since 2004. Surveys of ic- tion, drama, and poetry are complemented by chapters on Aboriginal writ- ing, autobiography, literary criticism, writing by women, and the emergence of urban writing. Areas of research that have expanded since the irst edition include environmental concerns and questions of sexuality which are freshly explored across several different chapters. A substantial chapter on franco- phone writing is included. Authors such as Margaret Atwood, noted for her experiments in multiple literary genres, are given full consideration, as is the work of authors who have achieved major recognition, such as Alice Munro, recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. Eva-Marie Kröller edited the Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature (irst edn., 2004) and, with Coral Ann Howells, the Cambridge History of Canadian Literature (2009). She has published widely on travel writing and cultural semiotics, and won a Killam Research Prize as well as the Distin- guished Editor Award of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals for her work as editor of the journal Canadian
    [Show full text]
  • Muriel Spark's Stylish Spinsters: Miss Jean Brodie Past Her Prime
    Muriel Spark’s Stylish Spinsters: Miss Jean Brodie Past Her Prime Hope Howell Hodgkins Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) Fashion succeeds by promising to annul the fragmented conditions of modernity with the imposition of a coherent subjectivity. Leslie Rabine / Joanne Finkelstein Baudelairean dédoublement: The wise man is “one who had acquired by habit a power of rapid self-division (dédoublement) and thus of assisting as a disinterested spectator at the phenomena of his own ego.” -D’Essence de la Rire Alexander Moffat, 1984 (Scottish National Portrait Gallery) “. head up, like Sybil Thorndike, her nose arched and proud.” She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro’ the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look’d down to Camelot. Alfred, Lord Tennyson “The Lady of Shalott” The Lady of Shalott, William Holman Hunt, 1889-92 (Wadsworth Museum of Art) The Girls of Slender Means Edinburgh Festival 2009 Edwardian blue silk damask dress: “Bluebell” Bluebell the cat Schiaparelli Pink Schiaparelli hat, 1948 Schiaparelli dress, 1938 The Driver’s Seat, 1970 The Driver’s Seat (European title: Identikit), 1974 Mona Washbourne & Elizabeth Taylor Her own work of art: Spark in Rome, 1970 (Jerry Bauer, NLS) “Plump, motherly”: Spark with her son, early 1940s Stylish into old age. [A]n artist is only an artist on condition that he is a double man and that there is not one single phenomenon of his double nature of which he is ignorant. Charles Baudelaire, “D’Essence de la rire”.
    [Show full text]
  • The Best According To
    Books | The best according to... http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329724792­99819,00.html The best according to... Interviews by Stephen Moss Friday February 23, 2007 Guardian Andrew Motion Poet laureate Choosing the greatest living writer is a harmless parlour game, but it might prove more than that if it provokes people into reading whoever gets the call. What makes a great writer? Philosophical depth, quality of writing, range, ability to move between registers, and the power to influence other writers and the age in which we live. Amis is a wonderful writer and incredibly influential. Whatever people feel about his work, they must surely be impressed by its ambition and concentration. But in terms of calling him a "great" writer, let's look again in 20 years. It would be invidious for me to choose one name, but Harold Pinter, VS Naipaul, Doris Lessing, Michael Longley, John Berger and Tom Stoppard would all be in the frame. AS Byatt Novelist Greatness lies in either (or both) saying something that nobody has said before, or saying it in a way that no one has said it. You need to be able to do something with the English language that no one else does. A great writer tells you something that appears to you to be new, but then you realise that you always knew it. Great writing should make you rethink the world, not reflect current reality. Amis writes wonderful sentences, but he writes too many wonderful sentences one after another. I met a taxi driver the other day who thought that.
    [Show full text]
  • Literature (LIT) 1
    Literature (LIT) 1 LITERATURE (LIT) LIT 113 British Literature i (3 credits) LIT 114 British Literature II (3 credits) LIT 115 American Literature I (3 credits) LIT 116 Amercian Literature II (3 credits) LIT 132 Introduction to Literary Studies (3 credits) This course prepares students to understand literature and to articulate their understanding in essays supported by carefully analyzed evidence from assigned works. Major genres and the literary terms and conventions associated with each genre will be explored. Students will be introduced to literary criticism drawn from a variety of perspectives. Course Rotation: Fall. LIT 196 Topics in Literature (3 credits) LIT 196A Topic: Images of Nature in American Literature (3 credits) LIT 196B Topic: Gothic Fiction (3 credits) LIT 196C Topic: American Detective Fiction (3 credits) LIT 196D Topic: The Fairy Tale (3 credits) LIT 196H Topic: Literature of the Supernatural (4 credits) LIT 196N Topic: American Detective Fiction for Nactel Program (4 credits) LIT 200C Global Crossings: Challenge & Change in Modern World Literature - Nactel (4 credits) Students in the course will read literature from a range of international traditions and will reach an understanding and appreciation of the texts for the ways that they connect and diverge. The social and historical context of the works will be explored and students will take from the course some understanding of the environments that produced the texts. LIT 200G Topic: Pulitzer Prize Winning Novels-American Life (3 credits) LIT 200H Topic: Poe and Hawthorne (3 credits) LIT 201 English Drama 900-1642 (3 credits) LIT 202 History of Film (3 credits) The development of the film from the silent era to the present.
    [Show full text]
  • Chivalry in Western Literature Richard N
    Rollins College Rollins Scholarship Online Master of Liberal Studies Theses 2012 The nbU ought Grace of Life: Chivalry in Western Literature Richard N. Boggs Rollins College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.rollins.edu/mls Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, European History Commons, Medieval History Commons, and the Medieval Studies Commons Recommended Citation Boggs, Richard N., "The nbouU ght Grace of Life: Chivalry in Western Literature" (2012). Master of Liberal Studies Theses. 21. http://scholarship.rollins.edu/mls/21 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by Rollins Scholarship Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master of Liberal Studies Theses by an authorized administrator of Rollins Scholarship Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Unbought Grace of Life: Chivalry in Western Literature A Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Liberal Studies by Richard N. Boggs May, 2012 Mentor: Dr. Thomas Cook Reader: Dr. Gail Sinclair Rollins College Hamilton Holt School Master of Liberal Studies Program Winter Park, Florida The Unbought Grace of Life: Chivalry in Western Literature By Richard N. Boggs May, 2012 Project Approved: ________________________________________ Mentor ________________________________________ Reader ________________________________________ Director, Master of Liberal Studies Program ________________________________________ Dean, Hamilton Holt School Rollins College Dedicated to my wife Elizabeth for her love, her patience and her unceasing support. CONTENTS I. Introduction 1 II. Greek Pre-Chivalry 5 III. Roman Pre-Chivalry 11 IV. The Rise of Christian Chivalry 18 V. The Age of Chivalry 26 VI.
    [Show full text]
  • İED 142 (02) Classical Literature Instructor: Assist
    Hacettepe University Faculty of Letters Department of English Language and Literature Course: İED 142 (02) Classical Literature Instructor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Pınar Taşdelen Year/Term: 2019-2020 Spring Class Hours: Monday 09:00-11:50 B2/203 Office Hours: Wednesday 10:00-12:00 Aim of the Course: This course intends to enable students to acquire a knowledge and appreciation of classical literature, through the study of the social and political life of Greece and Rome; and create awareness of a common European heritage deriving from the civilisations of Greece and Rome. It undertakes a brief survey of classical Greek and Roman literature with special emphasis on the epic and dramatic genres through the study of exemplary texts, which is essential for a better understanding and appreciation of not only British literature but also all Western literature and art. Course Content: In this course, ancient Greek and Roman civilisations are introduced to students within a social, cultural, historical, and literary context. Oral literary tradition, the epic tradition, Homeric epics, the birth and development of Classical Greek and Roman tragedy as well as comedy are dealt with in the light of representative literary texts. Course Outline: Week I: General introduction Brief history of ancient Greece General characteristics of Classical Greek literature The heroic ideal and heroic age Week II-VI: The epic tradition and the Homeric epics Homer The Iliad Week VII: Midterm I (06.04.2020) Week VIII: The birth, development, and features of Classical Greek tragedy Week IX: Greek tragedy Sophocles Oedipus the King Week X: The birth, development, and features of Roman tragedy Seneca Thyestes Week XI: Midterm II (04.05.2020) Week XII: The birth, development, and features of Classical Greek comedy Aristophanes Lysistrata Week XIII: The birth, development, and characteristics of Roman comedy Plautus Pot of Gold Week XIV: Bank Holiday *There may be changes to the course outline.
    [Show full text]
  • Cahiers-Papers 53-1
    The Giller Prize (1994–2004) and Scotiabank Giller Prize (2005–2014): A Bibliography Andrew David Irvine* For the price of a meal in this town you can buy all the books. Eat at home and buy the books. Jack Rabinovitch1 Founded in 1994 by Jack Rabinovitch, the Giller Prize was established to honour Rabinovitch’s late wife, the journalist Doris Giller, who had died from cancer a year earlier.2 Since its inception, the prize has served to recognize excellence in Canadian English-language fiction, including both novels and short stories. Initially the award was endowed to provide an annual cash prize of $25,000.3 In 2005, the Giller Prize partnered with Scotiabank to create the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Under the new arrangement, the annual purse doubled in size to $50,000, with $40,000 going to the winner and $2,500 going to each of four additional finalists.4 Beginning in 2008, $50,000 was given to the winner and $5,000 * Andrew Irvine holds the position of Professor and Head of Economics, Philosophy and Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. Errata may be sent to the author at [email protected]. 1 Quoted in Deborah Dundas, “Giller Prize shortlist ‘so good,’ it expands to six,” 6 October 2014, accessed 17 September 2015, www.thestar.com/entertainment/ books/2014/10/06/giller_prize_2014_shortlist_announced.html. 2 “The Giller Prize Story: An Oral History: Part One,” 8 October 2013, accessed 11 November 2014, www.quillandquire.com/awards/2013/10/08/the-giller- prize-story-an-oral-history-part-one; cf.
    [Show full text]
  • Victorian Drama
    VICTORIAN DRAMA By jOHN A. DEGEN MosT HISTORIANS OF Victorian life and art have not given sustained and serious attention to the drama and the theatrical environn1ent in which it was produced. The theatre as a social pheno1nenon is forgotten in the wake of other, more pressing concerns-the growth of industry, labor legislation, public health, and political enfranchisetnent-while the drama written during the bulk of the century is generally looked upon as the black sheep of Victorian literature. Indeed, even historians of theatrical art tend to treat the nineteenth-century Eng­ lish theatre with overtones of derision, while most sur­ ve ys of British dra1na seem to suggest that the genre underwent a nearly total eclipse between the plays of Sheridan and Shaw. Yet the Victorian theatre was one of the most vitally active in the long history of dramatic art. Particularly after the well-reported attendance of the newly ascended Queen Victoria made it unquestionably respectable, the theatre was a part of the lives of London­ ers of all classes. And since the theatre was patronized by such a broad spectrum of the population, the study of the types of dramatic entertainment which were demanded and made available cannot help but be revealing of the society of the time. As a repository for the resources for such a study, the Lilly Library is as richly endowed with materials relating to the nineteenth-century British theatre as it is in the street literature and other aspects of Victorian popular culture. The core of the Lilly's holdings in this area is the vast collection of nineteenth-century British [ 5 J drama assembled by Keith L.
    [Show full text]
  • Literature Culture Linguistics Muriel Spark
    2018.NEXUS 02 edita: Cristina Alsina Rísquez FREDERICK DOUGLASS &MARTIN LUTHER LITERATURE KING & CULTURE MURIEL SPARK WILLFRED OWEN LINGUISTICS MATTI RISSANEN DEBORAH SCHIFFRIN M.A.K. HALLIDAY Presidente ALBERTO LÁZARO LAFUENTE Universidad de Alcalá Secretario ANTONIO BALLESTEROS GONZÁLEZ 2018.NEXUS 02 UNED Vocal 1a CRISTINA ALSINA RÍSQUEZ Copyright De los textos, sus autores. Universitat de Barcelona Editor CRISTINA ALSINA RÍSQUEZ Vocal 2a ROSARIO ARIAS DOBLAS Universidad de Málaga Graphic TONI CAMPS design useixantaquatre.com Tesorera CRISTINA SUÁREZ GÓMEZ Universitat de les Illes Balears ISSN 1697-4646 http://www.aedean.org nexus 2018-02 ÍNDICE LITERATURE AND CULTURE AND LITERATURE TRIBUTES MAR GALLEGO Universidad de Huelva 7 Frederick Douglass & Martin Luther King Commemorating Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King: African American Rhetoric and Black Masculinity BERTA CANO ECHEVARRÍA Universidad de Valladolid 19 Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen’s Search for Words TOMÁS MONTERREY Universidad de La Laguna FRANCISCO GARCÍA LORENZANA Y PEPA LINARES 25 Traductores de Muriel Spark Esplendida´ Spark In Memoriam. 1918-2006 LINGUISTICS TRIBUTES MARÍA JOSÉ LÓPEZ-COUSO & BELÉN MÉNDEZ-NAYA University of Santiago de Compostela 32 Matti Rissanen In Memoriam: Matti Rissanen, the linguist, the friend BEGOÑA BELLÉS FORTUÑO Universitat Jaume I 38 Deborah Schiffrin In Memoriam 3 nexus 2018-02 ÍNDICE LINGUISTICS TRIBUTES DANIEL GARCÍA VELASCO Universidad de Oviedo M.A.K. Halliday 41 El lenguaje segun M.A.K. Halliday ´ LITERATURE AND CULTURE AND LITERATURE RESEARCH PAPERS RESEARCH CLARA ESCODA Universitat de Barcelona 45 “Much Deeper than That”: Hegemonic Emotional Experiences and Affective Dissidences in Martin Crimp’s In the Republic of Happiness (2012) Research Project: British Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis, Affect, Community LINGUISTICS RESEARCH PAPERS RESEARCH MARÍA F.
    [Show full text]
  • Victorian Literature
    Victorian Literature Defining Victorian literature in any satisfactory and comprehensive manner has proven troublesome for critics ever since the nineteenth century came to a close. The movement roughly comprises the years from 1830 to 1900, though there is ample disagreement regarding even this simple point. The name given to the period is borrowed from the royal matriarch of England, Queen Victoria, who sat on throne from 1837 to 1901. One has difficulty determining with any accuracy where the Romantic Movement of the early nineteenth century leaves off and the Victorian Period begins because these traditions have so many aspects in common. Likewise, identifying the point where Victorianism gives way completely to Modernism is no easy task. Literary periods are never the discrete, self- contained realms which the anthologies so suggest. Rather, a literary period more closely resembles a rope that is frayed at both ends. Many threads make up the rope and work together to form the whole artistic and cultural milieu. The Victorian writers exhibited some well-established habits from previous eras, while at the same time pushing arts and letters in new and interesting directions. Indeed, some of the later Victorian novelists and poets are nearly indistinguishable from the Modernists who followed shortly thereafter. In spite of the uncertainty of terminology, there are some concrete statements that one can make regarding the nature of Victorian literature, and the intellectual world which nurtured that literature. If there is one transcending aspect to Victorian England life and society, that aspect is change – or, more accurately, upheaval. Everything that the previous centuries had held as sacred and indisputable truth came under assault during the middle and latter parts of the nineteenth century.
    [Show full text]
  • The Canadian Writer & the Iowa Experience
    THE CANADIAN WRITER & THE IOWA EXPERIENCE Anthony Bukoski Τ PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER IS TWO-FOLD: to try to piece together from interviewlHsE and correspondence I have had with a number of Canadian authors — twenty-seven to be exact — a sort of general history, a chronological overview of their involvement in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and to try to assess the significance of that involvement not only to the writers them- selves but to Canadian literature in general. I intend hedging a bit by including some writers who became Canadians only after leaving Iowa.1 Could so many writers have studied at the same institution in the United States without its having left some mark? What attitudes about teaching creative writing or the commitment to the writer's life and craft did they form? Given the method of Workshop investigation, the fragile egos of most young writers, and the fact that the Workshop is in another country, not all of them profited from the experi- ence of studying at Iowa. Speaking of her experiences there in the late 1950's, for instance, Carol Johnson, who teaches at the University of Victoria, noted, "Writ- ers on the whole seem notorious for their unhappiness. Legends of particularly unhappy types prevailed [though not necessarily Canadians]. Since writers are apparently predisposed to neurosis, it would be safe to assume that most of them would be unhappy anywhere."2 Those who were satisfied found the programme valuable, the atmosphere con- ducive to work — though perhaps neither so attractive nor congenial as the main character finds Iowa in W.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Victorian and Twentieth-Century Literature Heesok Chang
    Introduction to Victorian and Twentieth-Century Literature Heesok Chang Unlike the preceding three volumes in this Companion to British Literature – the Medieval, Early Modern, and Long Eighteenth Century – the current one attempts to cover at least two distinct periods: the Victorian and the Twentieth Century. To make matters more difficult, the second of these hardly counts as a single period; it is less an epoch than a placeholder. In terms of periodization, the Victorian era is succeeded – or some might say, overthrown – by the Modern. But modernism is not capacious enough to encompass the various kinds of literary art that emerged in Britain following World War II, the postmodern and the postcolonial, for example. We could follow the lead of recent scholars and expand the modernist period beyond the “high” to include the “late” and arguably the “post” as well. But this conceptual as well as temporal expansion does not take in the vital British literature written from the 1970s onward, an historical era distinct from the “postwar” that critics refer to, for now, as the “contemporary” (see English 2006). Of course, all periods are designated after they have finished, including the Victo- rian, which was very much a modernist creation. Yet it is unlikely we will come to call the period stretching from the middle of the last century to the early decades of the new millennium, from the breakup of Britain’s empire to the devolution of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, “Elizabethan.” And this despite the Victo- rian longevity of the Windsor monarch’s reign. The queen is one and the same, but the national culture is anything but.
    [Show full text]